Journalism v. Propaganda

Journalism v. propaganda
The US and Israel blame Iran for the suicide attack in Bulgaria, but offer no evidence for the accusation

BY GLENN GREENWALD

 Glenn Greenwald noticed the same thing I did. That America's media immediately took up the cry that this was Iran, and that they did so based on no facts whatsoever .... only that PM Netanyahu and later the US Gov said it was so.

Neither is exactly a reliable source. Anyone remember Iraq WMDs? Or that portions of the US Gov have been saying that Iran is developing nuclear weapons when the IAEA, US intelligence and most of the intelligence agencies in the world have been saying they have not been for nearly a decade now.

Shouldn't journalists ask for some proof? Or maybe talk to the authorities in Bulgaria where this happened and see what they say?

"...even though the Bulgarian Foreign Minister said: “We’re not pointing the finger in any direction until we know what happened and complete our investigation.” All The Paper of Record knows is that U.S. and Israeli officials have blamed Iran and Hezbollah, and — as usual — that’s good enough for them. Identified, Confirmed and Corroborated."

This is no longer journalism.  Which means no sensible or thinking person should be paying any attention to it.  If you want to understand the world, the first thing to do is to stop reading the NYT or paying attention to any other news source that tells you this.  If you do, then in order to really understand the world, you have to be able fact-check what they tell you and get the lies, like that Iran is surely behind this, out of your head.  Its easier just to pay no attention at all to this junk.

Use this is as a test.  Right now, if any news source tells you that Iran is behind this, without any real, tangible proof what-so-ever, then you should stop paying any attention to what they say.

Do I know if Iran was behind this?  No.  Do I know that Iran was not behind this?  No.  What I know is that there are no facts available yet.  So anyone who's telling you either statement is feeding you BS.

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Decline of the News

The Relentless Decline of the News by STEVEN HIGGS


Gallup Polling shows public confidence in the 'news' at an all time low.  This of course is an under-reported story by the 'news'.

If you get your view of the world from the media, it seems the world trusts the world's most trusted new source and the fair and balanced reporting.  So, this Gallup Poll is a welcome reminder that many, many people see this as schlep unrelated to their lives, and has learned not to trust the people who's lies about facts about Iraq's WMD's helped contribute to the deaths of 4,500 Americans in a needless war.

And given the sheer awfulness of the coverage of a modern American policitcal campaign combined with the media overload associated with that, these numbers are only likely to drop in coming months.

The article contains a fascinating breakdown of eras

While the poll’s historic fits and starts could be tied to specific events, four distinct periods can be delineated throughout the nearly four decades that newspapers have been included in Gallup’s annual confidence poll. 

1973 to 1979 – Public confidence in newspapers, then the most dominant source of news for American citizens, soared from the high 30s to the peak at 51 percent. 

1980 to 1982 – Public confidence in newspapers declined more precipitously than it had risen, falling to 35 percent. 

1983 to 2000 – Public confidence in newspapers averaged in the mid-30s, fluctuating between 29 and 39 percent. 

2001 to 2012 – Public confidence in newspapers steadily declined from 37 percent to 25, with a low of 22 in 2007.

I became old enough start trying to look at the world around me, and watch the news and read to try to understand it, during that first era.  This was the hey-dey of investigative journalism.  This was Woodward and Bernstein exposing Watergate, and then the era when investigative journalists at every news outlet wanted to make the same sort of name for themselves by exposing corporate or government or military fraud or abuse.

The second is the Reagan era of Morning in America, when the corporate media declared that Americans were 'tired' of 'bad news'.

The third is the era when corporations took over the ownership of previously independently owed newspapers, tv stations and radio stations.  Its the era when the walls between the corporate business arm of these operations and the previously sacrosanct news operations came tumbling down.

The there's the last era which could be called the Bush BS era when the 'news' seem to give up the concepts of facts and reporting and just became propaganda organs.  This is the era when all the 'personalities' on the 'news' put American flags on their lapels and said they'd do whatever they could to serve.

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My favorite scene in V for Vendetta is near the end, when the Great Leader is trying to control his people by speaking to them on the tele, and there's only empty chairs in front.  That's the most potent weapon the people have against a corporate media that today just wants to sell to them and manipulate them .... DON'T WATCH.  Turn it off.  If TV News doesn't help you to meaningfully not only understand the world around you, and to participate to change the world around you, then turn them off.  Walk away.  Leave just empty chairs in front of the TV.

That's how we pull aside the curtain to reveal that the mighty wizard who has dominated our lives is really just a silly and powerless little man sitting at some controls.

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Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

As an exercise, take note of who uses the proper and correct name for the holiday.  Especially from politicians and businesses.

You'll notice how most want to call the day "The Fourth of July", not Independence Day.  One would almost get the impression they don't want you thinking about "Independence".  Instead, they just want you to think its a box on a calendar and that its all about fireworks and buying stuff.

Stop and think about how O'Reilly and others would react if everyone wanted to refer to Christmas as "The Twenty-Fifth of December".  You'd hear screams about how they want to take Christ out of the holiday.

Seems like most of the people who want to tell you how to think want you not to think about concepts like "Independence".

On a related note, also take note of how often you hear all of the text of the Declaration of Independence.  You hear the beginning part this time of year, although even that seems to be more and more rare as I get older.  But how often do you hear all of the following.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Something to think about on Independence Day.
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Look out kid, its something you did ...

... don't know what but you're doing it again. -- from Bob Dylan of course.

 December Surprise? From Rubin to Pelosi, Wall Street & DC Dems Push Post-Election Austerity

On a recent Meet the Press face-off between Democrats and Republicans, a politician claimed we urgently need to cut government spending. He embraced a plan to slash vital government programs and gut retirement security, while actually cutting taxes for the rich. The only tax hikes in his plan were targeted toward the already-devastated middle class. 

Then it was time for the Republican to speak.

You get to be fifty years old in this surrealistic world, and you start to see things you never thought you'd see. In the 2008 elections, I watched as the Labor movement went out and went door-to-door for Wall Street's candidate. Who would have thought I would have ever seen that?

 It was obvious before the last election that Barrack Obama was Wall Street's candidate. You just had to see the money that had backed Dubya move over behind Obama in the campaign finance reports to know that. Obama raised nearly double what Dubya and his Pioneers had raised in past elections, over $700 million, while the McCain campaign signed up for public financing because they didn't think they could raise more than about $90 million in the general election. And, Wall Street was the leader on Mr. Obama's contributor lists, especially during the important early days when his surprisingly strong fundraising established him as "anybody-but-Hillary" candidate in a crowded Democratic primary field.

Yet, there were the labor unions out going door-to-door for the candidate heavily backed by corporate and Wall Street money. What did they think was going to happen? 

The results have of course been predictable. Wall Street has been given everything it wanted by this Administration, while Labor got stiffed. Modern politicians view money as the key to victory, so its money that rules. Wall Street got their people placed in all the key economic positions in the government, hundreds of billions of direct public bailout dollars, and immunity from prosecution for their crimes. Labor got nothing. Even the weak promises made by Mr. Obama during the campaign were abandoned after the election.

And now, its happening again.

And its about to get worse after the election. The Democrats have been pushing Wall Street's austerity measures for the economy. Except, they've toned it down a bit for the election. That doesn't mean that Obama has seen the light and is about to become the progressive superman that was the mythical image created by Wall Street money in the last election.

It just means that the Democrats will wait until after the election to stick the knife in your back.

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Agents in the Mist

Here is an outstanding article about who undercover FBI operations are targetting and how they do it. As well as an article about the real and violent domestic terrorists that exist but who are ignored by the FBI.

 How FBI Entrapment Is Inventing 'Terrorists' - and Letting Bad Guys Off the Hook By RICK PERLSTEIN at RollingStone

"The antiwar movement soon learned whom to be afraid of: people who don’t quite fit in, who always seemed ready to volunteer for anything (if you’re on the FBI payroll, you don’t need a job), people pressing violence when everyone else in the room preferred peace. In the 1972 "Camden 28" trial of Catholic left conspirators who tried to steal and destroy registration records from a local draft board, the star witness got his breaking-and-entering training from the FBI and swore in court that the accused never would have raided the building absent his leadership. Although the people the FBI preferred to recruit were the sort who had trouble keeping jobs anyway

I heard a short version of this years ago ... "The person who is urging you to do something violent is the FBI agent in the room."

 This is the advantage of non-violent protest. The movement and the people within the movement are the more strongly protected from such FBI targeted attempts to entrap them because a non-violent and peaceful and even generally law-abiding protest movement is automatically going to say no and no again to the FBI provocateurs.

 And then, if the FBI break in and claim that home brewing equipment is really a plot to make molotov cocktails because you have empty beer bottles in your possession and because you bought gasoline while living in an urban society based on internal combustion engines, then it will be easier to make this look ridiculous if you have an open track record of non-violence and a willingness to stay within the laws as much as you can and still protest and act politically in a society where that is increasingly being made completely illegal.

 And the sad thing is that while the FBI is entrapping dumb anarchists who think its cool to sit around and talk about acts of violence with an FBI provocateur wearing a mic, there really are people out there planning real violence. These are the people who gun down abortion doctors, or who plant bombs in parks during concerts at the Olympics. They are really out there. They are the groups like the people who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. There really are domestic terrorists in our midst.

 But when the FBI picks its targets for political means and not based on a real analysis of exactly how big a threat some people really are, then this is what you get. FBI agents in photo-ops with some sucker's home brewing kit, while the people who really want to shoot you or blow you up go about un-molested.

So, how do we change this?  If we don't like this as the people who compose this society, then how do we change it?  Well, elections are coming.  We know this sort of FBI behavior stays exactly the same through Republican and Democrat Presidents and through Democrat and Republican Congresses.  That is self-evident after the last 12 years or more.   Thus you know a vote for either party is a vote for more and more of this misguided law enforcement.  At this point, isn't it obvious that to get change you are going to have to vote for one of the other names and parties that are almost always on an American ballot.

And the good news for activists is that political campaigns are an excellent place to organize peacefully and non-violently and still pretty much legally.  Think of a political campaign as essentially a long protest and series of events based around a central object of electing a certain person for elected office.  What's the difference between a protest outside a Wall Street bank and a political candidate wanting to hold an event or rally outside a Wall Street bank?   And if a city won't give you a permit to have your campaign rally, well now you have a message for your campaign about how they won't let you protest outside a Wall Street bank which should give you plenty of opportunities for you and your supporters to say why you want to protest outside the Wall Street bank.

So how about it ... how about we all get real political this year and try to see how much we can do as opposition campaigns to House, Senate and Presidential candidates all across this country?

Change comes suddenly.  From the Soviet Union to Berlin to Cairo, we see it come when all of a sudden all the people realize that they can go out into the streets and demand change, that they can do so relatively safely because of the numbers, and that they can really affect change because of their great strength in numbers that they only then realize that they have.

In America, the Obama campaign of 2008 won because everyone heard the words Change and Hope and rallied to his side.  It wasn't their fault he was lying.  The lesson is that Americans are hungry for Change and Hope.  A movement that provides even a hope of that Change and Hope could really catch fire in the America that still desperately needs some Change and Hope.

The warning signs are there.  We saw what was essentially a controlled burn in 2008.  But if anything four years of rule by the Democrats and Obama have only stacked the timber higher as nothing changed and there's even less hope and the only thing we got is the sure knowledge that the Democrats are liars.  In 2011, we saw that dry brush spark and smolder with the Occupy movement.   It certainly inspired quick and violent acts to make sure it was stomped out as thoroughly as they could.

The American landscape is ready for Change.  What it needs is a movement that can convince Americans that they can achieve it.  We know they want it.  We know they are willing to vote for Change and Hope.  We know they are willing to come out in numbers and volunteer and donate to a rising movement.  What we need to do is to provide the opportunity.  We don't even have to provide the movement.  They'll do that when they come, and we'll need to be willing to let them do that then.  We just need to provide the opportunity.  The opportunity is starting up opposition, anti-war, anti-Wall Street political campaigns in every House, Senate and Presidential race in this country.  Build it, and they will come.   And then everything will change and be possible.

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A Vote For War

A vote for Obama is a vote for war.

That is very plain and clear at this point, and backed up on two fronts. The first is the record of the last four years where we've seen...

• Obama carry through precisely the Iraq strategy outlined by Bush and Rumsfeld.
• Obama twice "surge" the Afghan war and triple the number of US troops there.
• Obama start a war in Libya, and do so in way more un-constitutional than anything Bush and Cheney ever tried.
• Plus all the other little wars that have continued and started during Obama's years.

The second is the clear statements from the Obama administration that they will go to war with Iran after the 2012 elections.  They are currently conducting negotiations with Iran in a very provocative way, by raising their demands even before negotiations begin to now include the complete elimination of Iran's civilian nuclear power program.  If only the US would offer to match them in that.

This is actually rather rare in American history. There have been very few elections where it was well known that electing a candidate as President would lead to a war, or the willing continuation and expansion of ongoing wars.

Honestly, a vote for Obama or McCain in 2008 was a vote for war.  In 2004, a vote for Bush was a vote of confirmation of his policies of voting for war as well as a vote to continue those wars.  But in 2004 a vote for Kerry was also a vote to continue those wars.  So, the recent trend is to have candidates about whom it can be clearly said that a vote for them was a vote for war.

You probably have to go back to 1972 to find another such case. In 1972, a vote for Nixon was a vote for war.  But even then, this sitting President talked far more about how he was the man to end the war than anything else.  His opponent, George McGovern was clearly a vote against the war.  In 1968, a vote for Humphrey was a vote to continue the war in Vietnam started by Kennedy and Johnson, but a vote for Nixon was also likely a vote for war.  But again, in stark contrast to today, both sides talked about how they would end the war, with Nixon touting his secret plan to end the war.

1952 was as much a vote on how to end the Korean War than anything else.  In 1944, war was a given, and the vote was more of a choice as to who should best conduct it.  But then you have to go back pretty much to Lincoln.  The 1940 election was before Pearl Harbor, and President Roosevelt's foreign policy that was leading to that attack wasn't much up for debate.  America's involvement in World War One happened between the elections, and in 1916 Democrat Woodrow Wilson ran promising to keep America out of that war.

In 1860, a vote for Lincoln was a vote for liberating the slaves, and also largely a vote for a war to make that happen.  The choice on the ballot was to vote for a Democrat who would prevent a war by defending the practice of slavery. The Mexican War happened in Polk's third year, and was wrapping up by the time of the 1848 elections, when people like Abraham Lincoln started to make a name for themselves by speaking out against it.  Before that, the US didn't really start wars, so a vote for President wasn't really a vote for starting a war one way or the other.

So, we are in a rather unique historical place.  Its very rare for the US public to get such an open vote on a President who all but promises to start another war, this time with Iran, right after the election.  Its even equally rare to get a chance to vote on a sitting War President who is openly proclaiming his support for continuing these Terror Wars that Dubya began.  

How will you vote?  Are you going to vote for war?  If you vote for Romney or Obama, you most certainly are voting for a war with Iran.  But there will be other names on the ballot.  And you do have a choice.  Are you in favor of yet another war?  Do you want blood on your hands?  In this fall's elections, you will have a very clear choice in your vote for President.  And probably at other offices down the ballot where you will also find Independent and 3rd Party candidates who would oppose a war with Iran.

How will you vote in 2012? Will you vote for war?

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Render to Caesar, Extraordinarily

Render to Caesar, Extraordinarily by Ray McGovern

As always, Mr. McGovern is very much worth reading. He ends with ...

Granted, now that drones have come into their own, it is much easier to kill folks rather than to capture and "render" them — like Jesus was rendered to the Romans by the corrupt religious authorities.

Good Friday is a day for pondering such things. While I believe what happened to Jesus gives those of us of Judeo-Christian heritage an additional, highly poignant reason to do so, my atheist friends have warned me against attitudes boarding on snobbery.

One said, "You don’t have to be a Christian, Ray, to know instinctively that human beings simply must not torture other human beings." He is right, of course.

And my friend’s caution reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Kurt Vonnegut who, at one point named himself Honorary President of the American Humanist Association:

"How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all humanists do, ‘If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?’

"But if Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being.

"I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake."

Are you human? Or, are you a rattlesnake? Then again, I might be insulting rattlesnakes. I don't think I've ever heard of rattlesnakes torturing other rattlesnakes. Maybe the question should be are us monkeys capable of being as good as rattlesnakes.

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Kurt Vonnegut Was Very Real

I Am Very Real, By Kurt Vonnegut

On a site who's secondary title is "Correspondence deserving of a wider audience". So very true. This is Kurt Vonnegut's response to his books being burned by Americans. This is a letter to the North Dakota School Board head who had ordered the burning of his books. It ends with the following passage.

I read in the newspaper that your community is mystified by the outcry from all over the country about what you have done. Well, you have discovered that Drake is a part of American civilization, and your fellow Americans can’t stand it that you have behaved in such an uncivilized way. Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

If you and your board are now determined to show that you in fact have wisdom and maturity when you exercise your powers over the eduction of your young, then you should acknowledge that it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books–books you hadn’t even read. You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive.

Again: you have insulted me, and I am a good citizen, and I am very real.

Kurt Vonnegut

This happened nearly 40 years ago, when Americans were still outraged by the banning of books and censorship. Today's America is very different. And so it goes.

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The Drone and the Cross

The Drone and the Cross by BRIAN TERRELL

There's a famous quote from the 1930's by novelist Sinclair Lewis "When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

The Roman Empire employed crucifixion as its preferred method of executing suspects deemed threatening to its imperial power and to the “Pax Romana” it imposed on the known world. The history of empires is banal and predicable even in its cruelty and the United States is more clearly than ever the successor of this imperial tradition. Empire will always be on the technological cutting edge, from bronze swords to nuclear missiles, with each advance extending the reach and the catastrophic potential of successive imperial powers, but the history of empires is really one single tragic story told over and over again with incidental variations.

Today those deemed threats to the U.S. Empire and its “Pax Americana” are increasingly targeted by Predator and Reaper drones armed with missiles and bombs. Just as Rome considered Jesus a “high value target” for execution, it is unlikely that today’s world empire would view Jesus’ life and teaching with any less suspicion. Were Jesus to preach today as he preached in Jerusalem two millennia ago, instead of a cross of wood the instrument of his passion might be a hellfire missile fired from a predator drone.

If Jesus wasn't killed by an American drone, he'd probably be captured and held in an orange jumpsuit down at Gitmo. Meditate on that for this Good Friday and Easter. Our empire probably wouldn't tortuously kill Jesus by nailing him to a cross and leaving him in the hot sun to die a slow and agonizing death. Instead, we'd torture him to learn the names of his so-called disciples that make up his terrorist cell, then we'd send him to Gitmo for more slow psychological torture and leave him in the hot tropical sun in those cages to slowly rot and die.

Can anyone honestly read the words of Jesus Christ that have been passed down through the ages to us and honestly believe that modern America is a Christian state? Oh, we my have lots of churches and symbolic crosses. But, as a nation we torture and kill around the world and at home we leave our poor to suffer and die in the streets with their feet unwashed. Both Jesus and Jefferson would be ashamed of this nation that acts in their names. And the rulers of today's America would target each with drones for elimination.

And, just in case you had any doubt about where this is heading, the US Air Force is seeking contracts to continue to expand the Drone Wars eight fold between now and 2016. This expansion is entirely of the newer, bigger drones designed to launch killer missiles.

Air Force ramps up drone war BY JEFFERSON MORLEY

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A Struggle of Memory Versus Forgetting

East Timor: A Lesson in Why the Poorest Threaten the Powerful by John Pilger

Mr. Pilger is being brilliant again. Please read. If only to remember.

Milan Kundera’s truism, "the struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting," described East Timor.

...

Visiting Australia last November, President Barack Obama issued another of his veiled threats to China and announced the establishment of a US Marines’ base in Darwin, just across the water from East Timor. He understands that small, impoverished countries can often present the greatest threat to predatory power, because if they cannot be intimidated and controlled, who can?

If you support the USA as a "predatory power", then vote to re-elect Obama. If you think America is supposed to be something better than a robber-state, don't.

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Can BRICS Tear Down a Wall?

Five Challengers of the Neoliberal Jackboot
by VIJAY PRASHAD

As Mr. Prashad points out, the recent "BRICS" conference (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) was woefully under-reported in the USA. If you just simply view American corporate "news" as a propaganda and advertising machine, this is no surprise. One of the constant themes pounded into American heads on a daily basis is "there is no alternative". Needless to say, a conference of nations trying to form an alternative can't be reported on within that larger, constant message.

Such mischief has finally enraged the BRICS states. They have thrown their support behind the UNCTAD round, and have pledged to work in a united fashion to contest the North’s protectionist policies regarding its agriculture, to push for reform of the financial system, and to create an autonomous development platform for the South. To the point about the financial reform, the Delhi Declaration pointed out, “It is critical for advanced economies to adopt responsible macroeconomic and financial policies, avoid creating excessive global liquidity and undertake structural reforms to lift growth that create jobs.” A majority of the world’s workers are now in vulnerable employment or in the informal economy. Austerity programs make life harder for these workers, who are often made to carry the burdens for family members who lose formal sector employment. Austerity might create GDP but it will not create jobs.

Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff told the press that the monetary policy of the North “brings enormous trade advantages to developed countries, and results in unfair obstacles to other countries.” To counteract this, there is now a move to create economic linkages outside those of the dollar-denominated financial system dominated by the North. The BRICS states created a new credit facility in local currencies, so that BRICS states and others can now trade with each other without recourse to the dollar or other such “international” currencies. This reduces the transaction costs for intra-BRICS trade as well as threatens the dollar from its pedestal as the main currency of international trade.

The BRICS states directed their finance ministries to research the possibility of the creation of a new development bank, a Bank of the South (a BRICS version of the South American Banco Sur, founded in 2009 with an initial capital outlay of $20 billion, to supplant the hegemony of the World Bank and the IMF). The new BRICS bank, it is hoped, will mobilize resources for infrastructure and development in the BRICS states and in other developing countries. If it were influenced by the Banco Sur, the BRICS bank could be a practical venue for the creation of a new institutional foundation outside neoliberalism.

This is of course how empires fall. They overreach. The powerful men who surround the King only think of their own personal enrichment, and in doing so force the empire to act against its own best interests and instead only serve the interests of the powerful.

Twenty years ago, no one could have imagined a bloc of Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and most of the "Global South" joining together. American policies have forced this. When America became a sole superpower, and then sought to abuse that power by forcing the entire world into economic subservience at the threat of endless wars, America created BRICS. If not BRICS, then there'd be some other gathering together of the nations of the world to try to create a bloc that could challenge or at least withstand Washingon's might. The fact that its necessary for their survival means that it must exist. Perhaps the only surprise is how long its taken to come together.

This is how empires fall. And, of course, the fall of the empire, and the BRICS in the wall that lead to that collapse, will be woefully under-reported in the official organs of the empire. Don't count on the Czar to tell you about the revolution. The good news is that word will get around. Its there if you look for it. Even if they make the internet illegal, or so restricted to corporate selling sites as to be worthless, look around, the word will be out there. Maybe printed by some samzidat press and secretly passed around as mimeograph copies to activists willing to take a risk to know a little truth. But, the truth will be out there.

These days, you have to look for the truth. Its out there. It always will be out there. Just remember that, and don't forget to look. You just got to poke around. Don't forget to poke the link above and read a fuller account of the BRICS conference and movement.

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Homeland Security Has a Bullet With Your Name On It.

Obama's Department of Homeland Security has put out a contract for 450 million bullets. If you take a rough estimate of 300 million Americans, that's 1.5 bullets for every American.

The Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is getting an "indefinite delivery" of an "indefinite quantity" of .40 caliber ammunition from defense contractor ATK.
U.S. agents will receive a maximum of 450 million rounds over five years, according to a press release on the deal.

And that's only the .40 cal ammo stockpile.

We've also learned that the Department has an open bid for a stockpile of rifle ammo. Listed on the federal business opportunities network, they're looking for up to 175 million rounds of .223 caliber ammo to be exact. The .223 is almost exactly the same round used by NATO forces, the 5.56 x 45mm.

In case you think there's some misunderstanding about what these bullets do.

The high performance HST bullets are designed for law enforcement and ATK says they offer "optimum penetration for terminal performance."

Feel like you've got a target on your back? Apparently you and every other American based on the quantities of ammo they are buying. And no, this article is not an April's Fools prank. Unfortunately, this is very sadly true.

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R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Born Again! George Galloway Stuns Labor, Shakes Up Britain
by TARIQ ALI

How did we get here? Following the collapse of communism in 1991, Edmund Burke’s notion that “in all societies, consisting of different classes, certain classes must necessarily be uppermost” and that “the apostles of equality only change and pervert the natural order of things”, became the common-sense wisdom of the age. Money corrupted politics, big money corrupted absolutely. Throughout the heartlands of capital we witnessed the emergence of effective coalitions: as ever, the Republicans and Democrats in the United States; New Labour and Tories in the vassal state of Britain; Socialists and Conservatives in France; the German coalitions of one variety or another with the Green’s differentiating themselves largely as ultra-Atlanticists, the Scandinavian centre-right and centre-left with few differences, competing in cravenness before the Empire.

In virtually each case the two/three-party system morphed into an effective national government. A new market extremism came into play. The entry of capital in the most hallowed domains of social provision was regarded as a necessary “reform”. Private finance initiatives that punished the public sector became the norm and countries (such as France and Germany) that were seen as not proceeding fast enough in the direction of the neo-liberal paradise were regularly denounced in the Economist and the Financial Times.

To question this turn, to defend the public sector, to argue in favour of state ownership of utilities, to challenge the fire sale of public housing, was to be regarded as a dinosaur.

Its time to demand some Respect everywhere. Freedom, Liberty and Equality are not the concepts of a dinosaur. They are essential human demands of people who want to live in a free and fair society. Those who want power and money based on your labor and subservience will always try to tell you that you cannot have Freedom, Liberty and Equality. But, we've also known for a couple of hundred years now that we the people can have exactly that simply by standing together and demanding it.

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Say What?

Israel Shields Public from Risks of War with Iran byGareth Porter

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling Israelis that Israel can attack Iran with minimal civilian Israeli casualties as a result of retaliation, and that reassuring message appears to have headed off any widespread Israeli fear of war with Iran and other adversaries.

Does anyone see the contradiction here? On one hand, we are told that Israel must attack Iran because Iran poses an "existential" threat to Israel's very existence. Then we are told that Iran is too weak to retaliate against Israel should Israel attack Iran.

Do you maybe get the sense you are being lied to? That perhaps some blood-thirsty leaders who want a war are just saying whatever they want to say. That when hyping the war they are talking about what a horrible threat Iran is to the very existence of Israel. But that when trying to reassure and convince their own people that this war must be fought that they then turn around and reassure them that Iran is to weak to threaten them.

Of course, the fact that the same power structure and media system completely lied to you about the war with Iraq when it was being pushed and promoted is another sign that perhaps you are being lied to now. Remember back when Iraq was this horrible threat pursuing horrible weapons of mass destruction and that we had to attack today, that tommorrow would be too late, or else we'd see mushroom clouds over American cities?

Today we are told the same about Iran.

Remember back when we were told the Iraq war would be a cakewalk? Remember when we were told that the Iraqis would stand by the road and wave little American flags as we marched into their country.

Today we are told the same about Iran. Today we are told it will be a surgically clean war with Iran, with just some wonderful air strikes hitting targets. And we are told how this will cause the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow their government then they'll love us for bombing their country.

Don't get fooled again. These people are obviously liars. They start with the lie that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. They push this lie even though the IAEA, US intelligence and most of the rest of the world's intelligence agencies all agree that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.

You are being lied to.

You should not vote for any politician that lies to you.
You should not watch, listen or read to any media that lies to you.

Simple things like that can change the world and stop yet another war.

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War Crimes In Progress

SOS From Emergency in Afghanistan

For several days the NATO war lords in Afghanistan have been heavily bombing the village of Mirbandao in the Helmand province of the south of Afghanistan. The Italian medical aid and anti war group called Emergency has a hospital for war casualties located in the Helmand province along with three locations for first aid and first response care. The hospital is in Lashkar-gah.

Neither the hospital nor the first location closest to the bombardment in Grishk have received any injured casualties. The Emergency staff have been informed by the local population that the area is completely surrounded and military checkpoints are stopping injured people and civilians from getting away from the combat zone.

All of this constitutes a violation of International Human Rights beyond representing an offense to our civil conscience. Emergency is asking with utmost urgency that a humanitarian corridor is opened and a guarantee of the evacuation of civilians and transfer of injured.

The above is translated directly from the SOS sent out by Emergency staff from Afghanistan to Italy and to the world.

You know the American Wall Street media would not report to you on such a crime. Certainly not while its happening. Their reporters are embedded with the US military, and only report what they are allowed to see and report. The other source of information for the Wall Street media (CNN, FAUX, MSNBC, network news, monopoly newspapers etc) is official military press conferences.

So, if there were horrible war crimes being committed in Afghanistan, especially if they were out away from the capital of Kabul, how would you know about it? Most likely from the desperate cries of an aid group that's trying to help the victims. I don't know a thing about an Italian group called Emergency, and the above translation of their call for help and attention is frustratingly short on details.

However, what they ask for it basic human rights. What they ask for is something that would happen regularly back when war was less barbaric and had some basic rules. In years gone by, only the most horrible of barbarians would refuse to let civilians flee a castle or city they were besieging. Especially injured civilians seeking medical aid. Santa Anna at the Alamo allowed what the American and NATO generals apparently will not allow.

But, here's the main question you should ask about your life and what you really know. If war crimes such as these were being committed in your name right now in Afhganistan, how else would you hear about it?

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US among world's worst state murderers

Amnesty: US ranks 5th on global execution scale

America's 43 executions in 2011 ranked it fifth in the world in capital punishment, the rights group said in its annual review of worldwide death penalty trends.

Who's in the top four ahead of the United States of American in shedding the blood of their own citizens?

"If you look at the company we're in globally, it's not the company we want to be in: China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq," Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA

That's an interesting list actually. Not exactly the company you want to keep. Especially not if you want to proclaim to the rest of the world that you are the shining example of liberty and freedom to the world. But its an interesting list.

• Iraq is a US puppet state. We wrote their constitution and hand-picked their leaders of our liking. Might as well just put the deaths in Iraq on the tab of the United States.
  
• Saudi Arabia is our close friend and ally. In the last two decades we've sent troops and had our children killed to defend this regime. And we are apparently about to find a war for them against Iran.
  
• Iran. Current target of the American Two Minute Hate. Maybe the reason we are about to fight a war against them is because we are jealous that they kill more of their own people than we do?
  
• China is apparently the next great war that America wants to fight.
  

So, an interesting list. Two friends and two enemies. Its too bad we can't be more like someplace like Sweeden and be friends with the nice peaceful countries that don't murder their own people.

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Massacres Will Always Follow

The full title of this piece alone is a brilliant little nugget of truth.

Occupy A Country, Massacres Will Always Follow by PATRICK COCKBURN

All contested occupations have the potential for atrocities by occupying troops. There was a time, during national service and mass mobilizations, when this would have caused no surprise. Soldiers were considered by home populations as dangerous young men with semi-criminal tendencies.

The Duke of Wellington was denounced for snobbery for calling his men “the scum of the earth”, which was true. He was accused of inhumanity for favoring retention of the lash, but he argued that without the threat of a beating there was no way he could safeguard civilians from his soldiers.

Once again the drums of war are beating. This time over Iran. Every person with any sense in the world will tell you that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. The IAEA, the world's official atomic experts have been sending in inspectors and saying this for years. For as long back as when Dubya was beating the war drums, the US intelligence community has been saying that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Yet, our current war President, Obama is still beating the war drums for Iran. The only question appears to be when will the killing begin, before or after his re-coronation.

And, massacres will always follow. When the war drums are beating, we are always told how clean and painless the war will be. We are presented with plans that show our planes and missiles cleanly destroying the enemy. We are told the enemy will quickly collapse. We are told that our enemy will greet us waving cute little flags and throwing flowers at our soldiers feet. It is all a lie. As surely anyone who's paid any attention at all to Iraq and Afghanistan can easily know.

Massacres will always follow. There will be resistance. Iran is a revolutionary country who threw off American rule with their own revolution. They are a bigger, stronger and more prosperous country than Iraq was, and they will resist us. Massacres will follow.

If we go to war with Iran, we know we'll soon be seeing the stories of dead innocent civilians. Blown up by bombs, killed by missiles, or machine-gunned down by our troops. We've seen this time and time and time again. We know as sure as the sun will rise in the morning that this will occur. Its a part of war. War is always hell.

If you support this war, then you support this. Then you support machine-gunning down innocent people. You support murder and torture and kidnapping. If you support war, you support death and destruction. If you support war, then you are a supporter of the hell that is war.

So, go ahead, vote for your favorite war leader if you want. Vote for your war president Obama. Or vote for his wall street financed challenger Romney. Or vote for the crusading Santorum. Go ahead, vote for war. Declare yourself to be a supporter of hell and all its minions.

Or, stand up and say no. Its your choice. But know that the only way to stop this from happening over and over and over again is to do exactly that ... stand up and say no.

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Truth

Truth is important. If you base your outlook on the world on lies, then you are certain to be wrong. Only when you accurately see and understand the world around can you understand the world and make intelligent decisions. Its equally important thus to understand who is telling you the truth, and who is not. Its important to support those who would tell you the truth about the world. And to shun and never listen to those who would tell you lies.

Obama’s personal role in a journalist’s imprisonment by Glenn Greenwald in Salon.

This commentary is largely based around Why Is President Obama Keeping a Journalist in Prison in Yemen? by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation.

To understand the world, and to understand who is telling the truth, and who is not telling the truth, and who is actively working to suppress the truth and punish those who dare to tell the truth, please read both articles.

From Mr. Greenwald's piece ....

As we now know, on December 17, 2009, President Obama ordered an air attack — using Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs — on the village of al Majala in Yemen’s southern Abyan province; the strike ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children. At the time, the Yemeni government outright lied about the attack, falsely claiming that it was Yemen’s air force which was responsible.

The Pentagon helped bolster this misleading claim of responsibility by issuing a statement that “Yemen should be congratulated for actions against al-Qaeda.” Meanwhile, leading American media outlets, such as The New York Times, reported — falsely — that “Yemeni security forces carried out airstrikes and ground raids against suspected Qaeda hide-outs last week with what American officials described as ‘intelligence and firepower’ supplied by the United States.” Those U.S. media reports vaguely mentioned civilian deaths only in passing or not at all, opting instead for ledes such as: “Yemeni security forces carried out airstrikes and ground raids against suspected hide-outs of Al Qaeda on Thursday, killing at least 34 militants in the broadest attack on the terrorist group here in years, Yemeni officials said.” While it is certain that dozens of civilians were killed, Scahill notes that “whether anyone actually active in Al Qaeda was killed remains hotly contested.”

There is one reason that the world knows the truth about what really happened in al Majala that day: because the Yemeni journalist, Abdulelah Haider Shaye, traveled there and, as Scahill writes, “photographed the missile parts, some of them bearing the label ‘Made in the USA,’ and distributed the photos to international media outlets.” He also documented the remnants of the Tomahawks and cluster bombs, neither of which is in Yemen’s arsenal. And he provided detailed accounts proving that scores of civilians, including those 21 children, had been killed in the attacks. It was Shaye’s journalism that led Amnesty International to show the world the evidence that it was the U.S. which had perpetrated the attack using cluster bombs, and media outlets to reveal the horrifying extent of the civilian deaths. Shaye’s work was vindicated when WikiLeaks released a diplomatic cable — allegedly provided by Bradley Manning — in which Yemen’s then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh joked with David Petraeus about continuing to lie to the public: ”We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.”

As Mr. Schahill's article documents, this journalist is now in prison, and largely on President Obama's orders. There had been considerable outcry about the journalist's imprisonment in Yemen, and the US-backed Yemeni tyrant had been ready to issue a pardon. But President Obama intervened with a phone call insisting that the journalist who revealed this US war crime continue to remain in prison.

If you vote Democrat in the coming election, this is what you are supporting. Pretty much the same for the Republicans. If you like tyrants imprisoning journalists who report on their atrocities, then vote Democrat, or vote Republican. The one sure lesson of the election of Obama and the rise to power of the Democrats is that it makes no difference at all which one you choose. A vote for one over the other might signify that you prefer red or blue as your favorite color, or it might signify a preference for elephants or jack-asses, but a vote for one party over the other most certainly is not a vote to change the course this country is on. There are a few brave exceptions. People like Ron Paul in the Republican party, or Barbara Lee in the Democrats. But by and large, a vote for either the Democrats or Republicans is a vote for both spending millions of your dollars killing innocent women and children as well as imprisoning any who dare to try to tell you the truth about it.

There are always other names on the ballot. Please pick one. In the last election, although some 60% to 70% of the American people tell pollsters they want these wars to end, something like around 97% to 98% of those same people voted for a President who would do exactly what's described here. There were other names on the ballot. There were other choices. In fact, there were probably too many other choices to stage an effective opposition campaign. But no one who voted for these war crimes and this suppression of the truth can claim that there weren't other choices.

Make a difference in 2012 and vote for something different.

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The Reason Why the Democrats are so Afraid of Ron Paul

In the post below, I was noticing how the Democrat noise-machine seems to be in such an attack mode versus the only anti-war candidate with a real chance. Today, I saw the answer.

In a poll of potential Head to Head Matchups ....


Ron Paul beats Obama!  by a 43% to 41% margin.

Poll: Ron Paul bests Obama for the first time nationally

Congressman Paul (R-TX) has defeated President Barack Obama in a Rasmussen Reports daily presidential tracking poll of general election voters released Monday. This is the first time that Mr. Paul has defeated Mr. Obama nationally. Mr. Paul garnered 43 percent of the votes among general election voters and Mr. Obama pulled 41 percent of the votes.

When the Democrats get scared, they turn the nasty meter way up. Anyone who watched the Nader for President campaigns and the response it got in return in the form of sheer mean nastiness from the Democrats knows that. And this is why you are starting to see all over the left-leaning media constant mud-slinging smear attacks against Ron Paul.

Every time you see one, what you should really just note to yourself is that the party of Wall Street and War is afraid. There's a real opportunity for you to vote for real change. Change that would end the wars. Change that would save lives. Change that would start the process of kicking the money changers out of the temple.

Every time you see the Democrat propaganda machine slinging mud at Ron Paul, it means people out there are winning and threatening the power of the money and corruption that is today's modern Democratic party.

And you should be asking, what can I do now to help this along? What can I do to help Ron Paul defeat Wall Street? You should get involved.

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Left and Paul

Perhaps the most fascinating action on the current political stage is the way the Left in this country attacks Ron Paul.

The Republican nomination race right now consists of four candidates. The mainstream Democratic noise and propaganda machine mainly focuses on two. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Newt is doing is usual grandstanding routine, where he says anything that might get him attention and thus help make future book deals and speaking appearances pay in the hopes that he can live the rest of his life without ever having to get a real job. Santorum is usually described as the dumbest guy in politics, and routinely appeals to the people who would have burned Galileo and Copernicus at the stake for daring to suggest that the church was wrong when they said that the Earth was the center of the universe.

These two characters are the heart of the current Democratic campaign, which basically says that we should all vote for the current President and his economic policies of Hoover and Reagan and his foreign policy of Dubya just because these guys are worse. So, there's lots of noise from the noise machine about how awful Santorum and Gingrich are. The writers of the Dem noise machine generally ignore Mr. Paul because he's doesn't fit the role of this sort of propaganda as well as Santorum and Gingrich.

Mitt Romney is the Wall Street candidate on the right this year. Opensecrets.org records how the early Wall Street money in this election cycle has been flowing to Romney and Obama. So, the Democrats largely leave him alone. After all, he's backed by the same Wall Street money that backs the Democrats, and the likes of Santorum and Gringrich make much better propaganda for the Democrats politics of fear campaigns.

Then there's Ron Paul. On the surface, there's much in common between the left and Paul. There's a fake 2-D world-view imposed on politics in this age of 3-D entertainment that consigns candidates to the 'left' or 'right'. But when you look closely, its more of a mobius strip that wraps on itself as you find opposition to the wars and pro-corporate governance on both the left and right ends of the strip. In reality, what there really is is a corrupt, self-defined center that believes in taking your money and using it for corrupt payoffs to supporters and more and more and more war. All defended by an ever growing police and prison system that defends this corrupt, self-defined center from any real popular challenge.

In this view of politics, it makes sense for the left to support a Paul campaign that opposes our wars, opposes a corrupt pro-corporate government, and which opposes the anti-constitutional police state that tries to infiltrate, subvert and crush any opposition from the left.

Yet, what you find around the internet is the most shrill and nasty attacks upon any Republican from the left are aimed at Ron Paul. Reading these, you'd think Ron Paul is another Ralph Nader. Its a very strange sight to see. What passes for the left in this country is vigorously attacking the only anti-war candidate in the Presidential race that has even a slight prayer of success. With the only apparent outcome of such attacks to be the implied support of Obama and the Democrats and their goal to make Dubya look like a piker when it comes to starting war after war around the world.

You see the usual techniques of left-ist propaganda aimed at Mr. Paul. That is the cherry-picking of positions that the left doesn't like,and a focusing on those in their shrill screaming.

To me, I read these, and I ask the following questions. Does the left really want the wars to continue? The left is doing its political impersonation of Monty Python's dead parrot these days. There's absolutely nothing happening to the left of Obama to challenge his Reaganist government and policies. Which continues the pattern of the organized left that has existed for some time in that they only oppose Republican wars and policies. When a Democrat does the same things that a Republican does, the left falls into silent agreement.

If there was a strong left-ist challenge to Mr. Obama in this election, I'd support it. But there is none. The left has decided to sit out the Democratic primaries this year. And the popular left is so devoid of candidates in the general election that Rosanne Barr seems driven to take her comedy routine on to the political stage to fill the void that only a publicity hound could apparently spot.

With the left sitting there nailed to its perch in silence, the only political game in town right now for those who oppose our pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-police state government is the Ron Paul campaign. But, when people seem to spot that, that's when the screeching noises start to come from the dead lefty parrot nailed to its perch that suddenly start to tell you how awful Congressman Paul really is.

Its truly a quite bizarre political spectacle. I thought I'd seen the depths of how politically stupid and ineffective the left can be in politics, but this appears to be new depths.

Does the left not want the wars to end?
Does the left not want an honest government by a candidate who isn't bought by Wall Street?

Here's the main reason the left should support Ron Paul. Mr. Paul believes in the Constitution. We live in an age where the left's favorite Democrat has been sending the FBI and grand juries in vindictive attacks on the anti-war movement. We live in an age where one feels that in any political organizing attempt on the left one needs to look around the room to find out who's the FBI agent in the room. We live in an age where Cointel like activities seem to dominate anything on the left as you see people who seem to be actively subverting organizing and political goals from within any leftist popular movement.

Last year, we saw Obama's Department of Homeland Security and largely Democratic mayors and governors combine on coordinated police attacks on the Occupy Movement in cities across the country.

Given all of that, wouldn't it be nice to have a President that actually respects and believes in the Constitution?

To me, any political candidate is going to have policies I agree with and ones I don't. I don't agree with Ron Paul on everything. But, I think he's right on the important stuff. I'd like to see a President who ends these wars and who tries to reign in the military industrial complex. I'd like to have a President who seems to be honest and un-bought. If nothing else, I'd like to see a victory for Ron Paul because that victory would be a defeat for the minions of money from Wall Street that have dominated the government of this country for twenty years or more.

But, most of all, wouldn't it be nice to have a President who respects the Constitution and who isn't building a police state and using it to infiltrate, subvert, attack and crush any political organizing on the left? Wouldn't that just perhaps open up a little operating room for leftist activists in this country?

If you truly oppose rule by Wall Street and the wars and police state of the Dubya/Obama administration, you support Ron Paul. If you attack Ron Paul, I'm left wondering what you really support? At the very least, what can be said about the attackers of Ron Paul from the left are that they put their own narrow-minded political ideologies above any effective attempt to organize politically to challenge the power that's destroying this country. Of course, for anyone who's been around the left, that's not exactly a new revelation.

If anything decent is ever going to come from the political left in this country, first its going to have to grow up. And a sign of political maturity from the left would be support for an opposition candidate from the right that would give the left at least a few victories. Little things, like saving the lives of thousands of people who die in the Dubya/Obama wars.

So far, the left is still showing they haven't moved past political kindergarten. Does not play well with others is the political report card on the left so far this year.

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